Talk:Thomas Odell

From Black Hawk Slept Here

• Listed in the national census for 1830. Resident of White Pigeon Township, St. Joseph County. Age: 30-39. Household of ten persons. Wife of the same age group, apparently. Eight children in the household, the oldest of which is a boy in the 10-14 year-old age group.
• A Thomas Odle is listed as having served as a private in John White's militia company during the Black Hawk war, with service dates May 19-27. I am assuming tentatively that this is the same person as Thomas Odell. John White's militia company was a Cass County company, but Odell lived near Cass County, and owned land on the west side of the St. Joseph River.
• Thomas E. Odell was treasurer of Penn Township in Cass County (Cass-1875, page 186)
• "Other early settlers were Aaron Brooks, of Ohio, who came with his family in 1829, and located on his present farm on section twenty-four, and was accompanied by Nathan, Thomas and James Odell." (StJoseph-1877, page 86)
• "At a meeting of the electors of the township of Mottville, convened at the school-house in the village of Mottville on the 3d of April, 1837, the organization was effected by choosing Thomas Odell moderator..." (stjoseph-1877, page 87)
• "MOTTVILLE VILLAGE. ... The village, or rather the site of the village, was visited by several, of whom some subsequently became settlers of the adjoining country, before the settlement of any one except Quimby, notably Mr. Aaron Brooks and James Odell, who passed through there by stage in the summer of 1828, their business being to select a good location for settlement." (stjoseph-1877, page 88)
• "The first preaching [in Mottville] was in Conrad Cook's dwelling-house and in Stewart's hotel. Rev. Thomas Odell, a local preacher, came from Ohio in the spring of 1829, and settled here; he was among the first to preach the Gospel to the scattered settlers in this vicinity. He had been an itinerant minister in Ohio for eighteen years. He subsequently moved to Fort Scott, Kansas, where he died in 1872."

On 2nd thought, there is a lot of confusion about Thomas Odell. There were probably a couple of Thomas Odell's in the area, and one of them may or may not be the same person as Thomas Odle.